Forever in a Day
by Alphecca
Summary: Susan Ivanova's led a long, hard life fighting for Earth, the Interstellar Alliance and now the Sta'ui and has nothing to show for it. Old and bitter and terribly alone, she agrees to one last mission that could change everything. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

This fic is all action/adventure because Ivanova is cool and an action heroine. That said, I just want to warn everyone that it disregards everything that happens in "Time, Space and the Incurable Romantic" and pretty much anything else that gets in the way of a happy ending for Susan and Marcus :D I hope you enjoy it in spite of the lack of fluff.

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Forever in a Day

"_Anla'Shok'Na, they are breaking through!"_

Susan cursed loudly, her crew, made up mostly of Minbari were used to her outbursts by now and did not react to them. Sparks were flying out of several of the consoles and bits of the structure littered the bridge. Susan envied their self-control and surprising cleanliness. She herself was covered in soot and sweat, her uniform was rumpled and she thought the only reason you couldn't see the sweat stains was that it was black. Sometime during battle, she had lost her Ranger insignia.

"I'm getting too old for this," she told herself, wiping a greying lock of hair off her face, "You need to learn to delegate, Susan."

She took the command chair again and pressed to open communication with White Star 37 and the rest of the fleet, "Tighten the ranks, White Stars 24, 52 and 13 move in to assist, continuous fire in the whole area. Some of that _has _to reach target!"

"_Anla'Shok'Na, that will leave an opening in the blockade,"_ Shok'na Harren protested over the comm, _"we can't hold our end of the front without those three ships."_

"I know Harren!" she yelled back as an enemy fighter whizzed past White Star 3, in flames, almost close enough to skin them, "you'll just have to hold as long as you can. They must not get through to the planet!"

She looked behind her and to the right, resting her head on Shok'nali Durvan's knee was Faroush. Her eyes were tightly shut. She was praying in terror. Susan could not imagine what the little alien, barely taller than a ten year-old child was going through. The Sta'ui were a wonderful race – wonderful and mysterious and incredibly old. And this was their planet Susan was fighting for. The Sta'ui were possibly the oldest race not to fall under the heading of "First Ones". They were small, delicate creature who had long since left behind any primitive instincts for aggression. They had kept to themselves for hundred of thousands of years and devoted their existence to life and peace.

Susan had been the first to contact one of them directly. With the relative peace created by the Interstellar Alliance, the allied world had been able to push outwards beyond their borders steadily. Exploration was a booming business and private companies had been making fortunes pushing the boundaries of science and stellar cartography. With this expansion, First Contact had been made with dozen of new species, many of which were now in the process of achieving the requirements to ask for membership in the Alliance as well as many who had declined, sometimes violently, any contact other than conflict. Well, it kept Susan busy. When the independent IPX ship had stumbled on the Sta'ui's homeworld, Lari'na'maia, and scanned the surface, they had been amazed at the size of the structures on the planet as well as with its natural beauty but they had been completely unable to get close enough to establish any contact with its population. Susan had finally decided to take a White Star there to have a look for herself. At her age and with her experience, there were few surprises left in the universe and every single one should be relished. The effect was nearly immediate from the moment the ship left hyperspace just outside the minimum distance to the atmosphere they had ever been able to reach.

Susan had stood on the bridge, marvelling at the planet itself. The land, deep green, ochre where there was a desert, glittered on the side illuminated by the sun, the oceans were in parts milky white and in others blue. And then something touched her mind. It was the softest of touches, a feathery sort of feeling in her consciousness, like a kiss from a ghost. Without thinking about what she was doing, she had reached out with her mind, using her meagre telepathic abilities for the first time in decades and she felt her there. That was when she had met Faroush. The little alien, a scientist among her people, had been on watch for aliens that day and her mind had recognized the parts of the ship that were Vorlon and "tasted" her latent telepathy. Reassured that they were not Shadows or their allies, she had called to Susan.

Sta'ui technology was unlike any they had seen before. Where Vorlon technology was awe inspiring and terrifying, Sta'ui technology was beautiful and harmless. They were willing to share some of that with the younger races but only as long as they or their chosen representatives were running the machines. It was a good trade, the IA benefited from the machines but no one could make their own, therefore preventing their misuse. It wasn't ideal but it was good. And the Sta'ui were generous in their use of the technology. Sadly, as it always happened, there were people who were not so keen on being kept in the dark and wanted the technology for themselves and there were those who had served the Shadows so many decades ago and who knew, probably better than anyone else what lay down on the planet and what its worth might be. And they wanted it. When the first attacks happened, the Sta'ui, who had lowered their defences to allow easier trade with their new friends, were decimated. They had no ships or weapons so they turned to the IA for help and the IA rose to the occasion.

Susan had no issue whatsoever kicking the asses of former Shadow minions, especially after they had massacred a species she had come to love. Faroush had become one of her closest friends. Her soothing presence reminded her of her mother's before the Sleepers and took away the edge of her constant pain and loneliness. She was damned if she was going to let anyone destroy her friend's home.

Protecting a whole planet is difficult business and the enemy had many ships, more than the Rangers had. They were a force of peace and the borders they patrolled were long. They were stretched thin. What forces could be spared were here, fighting for their lives.

She frantically called out instructions to her ship and the fleet, switching easily from English to Minbari and the occasional Russian swearword.

"We're getting pummelled here! Where the hell are our reinforcements?" She yelled into the comm, now linking her to Minbar where the President and several high-ranking people were following the battle, "I didn't survive three wars and ten assassination attempts to die fighting raiders and Shadow-scum!"

"_They're on their way,"_ the President assured her, _"they should be there within a couple of hours."_

"No offence Madam President," Susan answered, "But that's not nearly good enough. Tell them to get their asses here right now!"

"_No offence taken,"_ Susan thought she heard a sigh from the woman who had been elected to the presidency only last year and had to learn that Susan enjoyed the leniency that being a war hero and a living legend afforded her quite a bit, _"I'll relay your message. We'll see what else we can do for you but hold on as long as you can."_

For umpteenth time in her life, Susan found herself missing John terribly. The woman was a good president, she had the right ideas and was capable enough but she was not a soldier and right now, that's what Susan needed most. Her Rangers were dying all over the place.

"Ok, let's try the Garibaldi manoeuvre," she told her crew. Her second winced visibly then took over and informed the rest of the fleet. _I never thought I'd be using Michael's crazy tactics_, she thought, _if this gets out, I'll never bear the shame_.

The White Star ships moved as one in perfect synchronisation, each perfectly in place. Amid a shower of missiles and laser fire, a small group of White Stars separated from the rest, led by Susan's ship. They raced and dodged their way through the fire towards the enemy at ramming speed. The enemy turned its attention to their more imminent threat. Susan opened the comm and broadcast towards the enemy ships,

"This is Susan Ivanova to enemy fleet," she said, "If my name means anything to you then you know that you have made a terrible mistake. Ivanova doesn't like pirates. Ivanova doesn't like bullies and especially, Ivanova doesn't like you. Make peace with whatever gods you worship because Ivanova is coming for you." She laughed long and hard, a laugh filled with blood-lust then punched the communication pad off.

She watched the alien ships growing larger and larger and the fire from their weapons arrays growing thicker. The ship rocked under the assault of so much combined fire but held. It wouldn't for much longer. Off to the side, White Star 22 exploded, taking several small enemy fighters with it and crippling one of the larger ships. She waited. And waited. She could feel the tension running through her crew.

"Now!"

At the very last minute, the White Stars decelerated brutally, swerved in place and released a cloud of flammable and corrosive waste gases right in their enemies' faces. With only a couple of seconds' stall, the engines started again, lighting the gas cloud they had created and propelling themselves back towards their forces from deep within enemy lines.

"Run!" Susan shouted. She was hanging off the edge of her seat with a look on her face that would have frightened a wolf. Behind them, the noxious cloud ignited and exploded. The ship shook and rocked, and lost power as the powerful boom knocked into them but the ships still held and they rode the shockwave to the end, nearly ramming into their own ships.

Susan stood up with some difficulty, the helmsman coming to assist her. She waved him away and limped weakly back to the command chair. It was lying on the floor in pieces, she kicked it out of her way.

"Status?"

"We lost three ships to the enemy and the explosion," she was informed as she ducked under the consoles around the command area and went to extirpate Faroush from a pile of debris, praying sincerely for the alien to be alive, "White Star 3 is disabled, communications are down, power is down and there is considerable damage to the hull in section 10 through 16. Casualties to enemy fleet appear considerable but our scanners are offline, it is difficult to say how many ships we managed to take out."

"Can you get through to the fleet at all?" she asked, handing an unconscious and seriously battered Faroush to a crewman.

"Negative," the communications officer said although he tried several times, "there's nothing we can do."

Susan seethed inside, they were dead in the water and she couldn't even relay orders to her fleet. She tried to think of solutions but in the end, accepted that they would have to finish this fight without her. It was just the way it worked sometimes.

"Alright, set to repairing vital systems," she ordered, "tried to get me communications first.

"Yes, Anla'Shok'Na."

"How's hull integrity?"

"43% but stable."

"Ok, so we're not going to randomly explode, at least one thing is working in my favour," she said, "I'll be in the infirmary if you need me. Durvan, you're in charge."


	2. Chapter 2

Night had fallen over her little corner of Minbar. Faroush was resting comfortably in the hospital's best room. It was her first time on Minbar and she had not seen anything of it except the healers that tried their best to make her comfortable until one of her own people could come to attend to her. Susan had wanted to stay with her, knowing what the first night after a first battle was like but the alien had dismissed her in a friendly but commanding tone.

Susan looked at herself in the mirror and wondered when she had gotten so old. Her hair was almost completely white and her wrinkles had wrinkles. Her eyes she could still be proud of, they were as clear as when she had been a third her current age. She knew she was considered very well preserved for someone her age and with her lifestyle.

She prodded at the bruise on her left cheek carefully. She ached all over after the battering she and her ship had taken during the battle over Lari'na'maia. It was always hard to look at herself knowing that she should not be alive, that every moment she was still breathing it was not her life she was using up but Marcus'. Apparently, he had had a remarkable amount of life force in him to keep her going so well for this long. Worst of all, was the knowledge that she had wasted it all. She knew he would be disappointed in her if he found out what she had made of her life. Here she was, past 60, alone, unloved, bitter and hard. She hadn't seen her friends in much too long, uncomfortable still in their presence. They knew what price had been paid for her life. She quickly applied some more salve to her cheek and turned away.

"I'm tired Marcus," she spoke to him as she often did in her dark times, "I'm tired and in pain and I'm stuck here. I can't give up because this life is not mine to give up. Was it worth it? Have I done anything since you've been gone that was worth it?"

She took a bottle of vodka and a shot glass from the bathroom cabinet. She downed two shots quickly, "I thought maybe leading the Anla'Shok would give me some peace," she said, her words already slurring, her tolerance for alcohol no longer what it used to be, "I'm trying to lead them in a way that would make you proud. It's a consolation, of a sort. But it's not peace."

It had always been a strange feeling, talking to Marcus. She didn't feel the embarrassment she should have felt at talking to a dead person. In a way, she always felt his presence, hovering there just beyond her reach. She felt as thought he could really hear her. She'd developed something of a relationship with him over the years, ironically. She downed a third shot, to keep the wolf at bay.

She slipped into an uneasy and fitful sleep. Usually, being this tired was the only way she could sleep easy, her body and mind exhausted beyond sorrow and worry. She woke several times during the night from unremembered nightmares. It was dawn the last time she woke this time from a much different dream, one that was full of urgency and confusion.

"_Susan, I need to talk with you."_

The hospital was nominally closed to visitors but Susan knew that wherever she wanted to go, on Minbar at least, doors were always open. She made her way through the deserted corridors towards the room Faroush had been set up in. She was wearing only the essentials of her Ranger uniform, her recovered insignia pinned on very carefully this time. There was another Sta'ui in the room, standing at Faroush' bedside as well as the President and her personal assistant.

"Madam President," Susan gave the President of the Interstellar Alliance a Minbari salute, her hands and thumbs forming a triangle, "Faroush."

"This is Ambassador Sorali," Faroush said, gesturing towards the other member of her species, "he is lately arrived from Narn where he was delayed when all ships with military capacity were ordered to help you."

"I'm honoured to meet you Ambassador," Susan relaxed slightly, something she only allowed herself to do in public in certain circumstances, "May I know why I was summoned here at this hour? You sounded...distressed."

"Indeed I am," Faroush said, "Sorali brings distressing news but I told him that you were the best person to help us."

"I will certainly do my best," she replied.

Ambassador Sorali took over, "First, allow me to thank you for your heroic effort to save my people from invasion," Susan bowed modestly, she didn't feel very heroic, "we owe you a debt that we will repay handsomely. However, we must ask for your help one more time before that."

"It's really not necessary," Susan said, "the Rangers are here to serve".

"Nonetheless, it would make us happy and Faroush believes she knows just what you would most appreciate," there was no arguing any more after that, among the Sta'ui, refusing to make someone happy would be an unthinkable offence, "Now, here's our problem. We have heard that during the attack on our homeworld, another, smaller enemy force managed to infiltrate a scientific station on one of the moons of Shorna, the second gaseous giant in our system. They have taken our people there hostage. We are very distressed about the situation. We do not know how to deal with this. Your president has very kindly offered to send your best negotiator to help us handle their demands but we have more pressing worries still than our people."

Susan felt a chill crawl down her spine at this uncharacteristic admission, "What was in that research station?"

"Among other things, a machine," Faroush said, "a machine from our more violent days. We found it during an archaeological dig and were in the process of studying some of its peculiarities in the hope that we could recycle it for better purposes rather than destroy it as we have other models of its type."

"We believe that if these people were to find out what it does, they would take if for their own and inflict terrible things on others," the Ambassador continued

"What does the machine do?" The President asked.

"You must understand," the Ambassador sounded embarrassed as though he were about to admit a dirty secret, "those were difficult days. We were still trying to find ourselves as a people and we thought it fair that the life force of one who had committed great crimes should pass on to those who were ill or injured. We thought it was a form of redemption for them, helping the community they had harmed."

Susan paled at the echo of what someone else had said before, a long time ago. She closed her eyes tightly. She flashed back, hard, to a pale face next to hers, breathless.

"Are you all right Susan?"

Susan opened her eyes when the President touched her arm. There was concern in the woman's eyes, "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine," Susan said although she felt very shaky. She took a deep breath.

"This machine," she started, "I think I've seen one like it," she described the device. It's design was still clear in her mind as though she had seen it only yesterday.

"Yes, that is exactly like it," Faroush said, surprised, "an older model, I believe. Where did you see this machine?"

Susan was loath to explain. As far as she was concerned, it was better that only those of her friends who were there at the time and were still alive were the only ones to ever know the price of her life.

"We...found...one of them back when I was serving on Babylon 5. Dr. Franklin studied it for a short time but determined it was too dangerous to use, even in...extreme circumstances. Not everyone agreed with him."

"Your Dr. Franklin is a very wise man then," the Ambassador sounded genuinely impressed, "we should like to meet him."

"I'm afraid he passed away a long time ago," Susan replied sadly. Most of her friends were already gone, it was better not to dwell on the injustice of that.

"What a shame," Faroush said, "enlightenment is precious. It bodes well for your species that you have people such as him."

"Thank you. I have been blessed with the friendship of several such people," Susan said, "but what is it you need me to do?"

"We can't risk the technology falling in the hands of such a ruthless people," Ambassador Sorali said, "We will trust the President's negotiator first to solve this, hopefully without any blood shed but if he doesn't succeed," he paled, "she suggested we have a "backup plan" and as we do not know what to do ourselves, we've decided to hand it over to you."

He knew that by asking her to help, there would be violence and death, just like when they had requested help when they were attacked. She felt sorry for the Sta'ui, she could see the strain being around the people of the IA getting to them. They were having to adjust themselves to a world that was brutal and careless and it was changing them. She was starting to wish, for their sake, that they had never met.

"I'll put together a team to work on this," she said, "the Anla'shok are both discreet and cunning and they value life above all else. They are the best people for a job of this nature."

Her mind was already considering possible plans of attack and choosing the right Rangers for the mission. It had to be a small, elite team armed only with denn'boks and shock grenades, and there would have to be at least two telepaths. She had no qualms about killing but she would respect the wishes of the Sta'ui as much as she could. She turned to leave but Faroush reached out for her arm.

"Susan," the alien looked at Sorali briefly then turned back to Susan, "We think you should go there yourself."

Susan was surprised, "Me? Personally? Er... okay... I guess I can do that too. Sure."

"You entrusted something to us," Faroush said, "that is kept in that research station. We thought, under the circumstances, you would want to go yourself."

"Oh," Susan's heart began beating fast, "I see. Yes. You're right, I need to make sure nothing happens to...it."

"As I know better than to ask what that is," the President said, picking her jacket up from the nearby chair, "I shall leave the three of you to make whatever arrangements you need to make. I don't need to remind you that we need all the White Stars we can get on regular duty, I'm sure."

"Most of them are back on normal duty," Susan reassured her absent-mindedly, "The Narn, the Drazi and the Gaim have been very generous and lent us some of their troops to patrol the area immediately around Lari'na'maia."

"Good, good," the President and her aide headed out of the room, "that's at least one less thing for me to worry about. For tonight anyway. Good night, all."


	3. Chapter 3

"I really would prefer if you'd stay in the ship, Faroush," Susan knew it was futile but she had to try anyway, "there's bound to be fighting inside. You don't really want to go through that again so soon."

"I know," Faroush looked depressed but determined. They were all wearing dark clothes, their Ranger uniforms, they had even managed to find one more or less Faroush's size. The only spot of color was the green stone of the Anla'shok insignia which Faroush didn't have. She looked remarkably thin and frail. They were also wearing black cowls and breathers. The atmosphere of the small moon was very thin and unbreathable by either Humans or Minbari or even Sta'ui.

This being a special occasion, Susan had taken Marcus' denn'bok with her and she now checked that it was securely but conveniently attached to her belt. Denn'boks were rare and were passed down from Ranger to Ranger. Susan had been using this one for years but, in her mind, it would always be Marcus'. She had three other Rangers with her, not the best fighters or stealthiest but she could count on them to be discreet. Still, something she had learned over the years was that even the least skilled Ranger was a force to be reckoned with.

"Alright then, stay between us and if things get ugly, duck," Susan went over again, "we'll watch over you. Tunam, Jordan, Sparren, are you clear on all the objectives?"

"Yes, ma'am," they answered each in turn, "we will not fail."

"Tunam, I'm counting on you to get everyone out of here safely if things go south," Susan told the Minbari Ranger-Telepath. She had brought him because he could "see around the corners" so to speak.

"Including you of course, Ranger One," he gave her a meaningful look.

"Of course," she said unconvincingly. She didn't have a death wish but she was determined to go through the mission, even if it meant her life. She thought the telepath might have picked up on that in spite of the solid mental blocks she had built up over the years. If Faroush had not been with them, she would have been willing to sacrifice all of them for the mission. That was the way of the Rangers.

They walked the relatively short distance from their shuttle to the edge of the crater at the bottom of which the research station had been built. The gravity was a quarter Earth-normal so the walk was an easy one. Susan rather enjoyed it, she felt as though she might take off and start flying any minute. The landscape was rough and littered with debris left over from meteoric impacts and the sky was a smoky dark blue to her right while the blue-green gas giant dominated the sky to her left. A second, bright white moon was just starting to appear from behind the planet, appearing only slightly smaller than Earth's moon. It had a soft pinkish hue around the edges. She felt light as a feather, her mind was still and ready. As they crouched behind the raised edges of the crater, she took a deep breath of filtered air and gestured to the others.

One by one they slipped over the lip of the crater and slid gracefully down the sides of the bowl. Jordan carried Faroush on his back. They barely raised any dust in the light gravity. They paused behind a boulder and waited briefly, scanning the area for sign of discovery or guards. They had complete schematics with them detailing the area both inside and out.

The Sta'ui had not included any sort of surveillance when they had built the place beyond space scanners to look out for meteorites and to guide their own ships in. Those might have picked up five life-forms on the ground but most likely not. However, it was a fair bet that the mixed group of raiders had installed some of their own. Susan was worried that it might be based on Shadow technology. She had some knowledge of it by now, knowledge she had picked up as captain of the EAS Titans which was partly based on Shadow organic technology. She didn't like it, never had, although she had eventually grown fond of her own ship. That was part of the reason she had brought a telepath along.

They moved on again, making the distance very quickly. There wasn't much to hide behind and so they made their way to the walls of the compound hoping for the best. There was an airlock at the back that they intended to get in through. Jordan attached a jammer bolt below the keypad and turned the device on. Sparren waited for Susan to gesture the go-ahead before opening the airlock using the combination that the Sta'ui had provided. Susan hoped the jamming frequency they had chosen would be enough to keep the central computer system to register the opening of the airlock, at least long enough to get them deep inside the compound.

The airlock opened and then closed behind them before the chamber repressurized around them. They took their breathers off and carefully attached them to their belts. Anyone who lost theirs would have to be left behind, unable to make the run back to the shuttle.

The corridor beyond seemed deserted and quiet. Like all Sta'ui architecture that she had seen, Susan found the place very pleasant and open. The ceilings were a bit low but that could work out in their favour.

They stuck close to the walls, walking quickly but silently. The ran into small group of raiders that the Rangers took care off quietly. They were a mixed bunch, mostly species they had never been in contact with. It was a shame that all they knew of these people was that they had served the Shadows so many years ago or that they lived outside the borders of the IA. Maybe some day they would be allies but for now, Susan had no problem with knocking them about a bit and leaving them lying unconscious on the floor.

There were a couple of intense but short fights when the Rangers had never encountered a particular species and didn't know what part of its anatomy to strike. Most species had fairly recognizable necks, heads and legs that could be relied upon as effective targets. However, occasionally, Susan would land what should have been a devastating blow to the head, worthy of at least a serious concussion, only to find that it had very little effect on her foe. Fortunately, with three other Rangers striking at the same time, they managed to bring down every opponent before they could raise the alarm.

"Anla'Shok'Na," Tunam whispered, "I can hear the hostages. They are nearby, to our left. Should I attempt to contact them?"

"Can you do it out of visual range?" She asked.

"Not normally but the Sta'ui are highly telepathic," he explained, "I can reach them easily."

"I can contact them myself, if you wish," Faroush said nervously, "And direct you to them."

Susan considered it briefly, "I don't know, Faroush, there are things we need to know that you might not know to ask for. How the raiders are spread out, what weapons they have and so on."

Faroush looked sceptical. Susan was attuned to Faroush, they had communicated telepathically very often and she could usually sense Faroush's peripheral feelings and what came through was worry directed not towards the mission but at Tunam. She doubted them, Susan realized. Faroush didn't trust them. She felt momentarily hurt.

_You I trust, _Susan heard in her mind, _it is the other three I am afraid to trust. I do not know them as intimately as I know you. You are incorruptible._

_You're giving me way too much credit_, Susan projected tentatively, still not comfortable with her telepathic potential. She was incapable of projecting towards anyone she was not attuned to. She was a very weak telepath. She had only ever managed to initiate a telepathic contact with her mother, Faroush and once, accidentally and due to a massive adrenaline surge, many years ago towards a rogue P12. _These guys are good_, she continued, _the Rangers are all hand-picked and trained rigorously. I would trust any of them_.

_We are afraid of what they might see in our minds_, Susan felt Faroush's fear although the alien filtered and controlled it so she would not get a full blast. She also sensed that this was a new and unpleasant experience for the Sta'ui. _We are afraid they will learn too much too soon. We have a responsibility towards the younger races. _

"Alright," Susan said, "just tell us in which direction to go and how many of them are out there, we will do our best from there."

They let Faroush guide them towards a central room. The schematics indicated that there were three access points into the laboratory, not counting ventilation shafts. She knew from Faroush that there were three raiders that the hostages could see and at least three patrolling the corridors around. The hostages couldn't give much more information than that they had been moved about regularly, from room to room, and were disoriented and kept mildly sedated throughout.

They made it to the last junction before the room. Susan whispered instructions to her Rangers on how to take on the room. They would have to improvise but, fortunately, the Rangers were good in a tight situation.

"Alright, get ready," Susan whispered, "Faroush, stay in the corridor, keep to the shadows."

Just as she was about to give the signal to storm the room, the distinctive zipping sound of a PPG broke the silence. There was a flash of blue light and Sparren hit the floor, a smoking wound on his back. He gasped and tried to turn around to face his opponent.

"Sparren, stay down," Susan ordered and moved to cover him while the other two Rangers sprang into action. One of them activated a shock grenade. Susan covered Sparren's eyes with one hand and closed her own tightly.

There was a flash of light, visible even through her eyelids and the high-pitched whizzing sounds that combined with the light would have rendered any of them unconscious. She opened her eyes and was disoriented as her ears readjusted to the silence. The alien that had shot Sparren was down but the commotion had attracted a patrol. Susan left Sparren to Faroush's care and joined the others in the fight, denn'bok in hand.

There were three raiders, they took one on each. They were tough sons of bitches all three, big aliens with armored skin. Susan had to put all her strength and weight behind every strike of her fighting pike. She knew that she would be exhausted very quickly.

"Anla'Shok'Na," Jordan stood with his back against hers, "we'll have to take one on together. We are not strong enough individually."

"You two take on one," Tunam said, out of breath, "I'll keep the other two occupied."

"Good thinking," Susan said, "let's start with this bastard here, he looks biggest and I'm pretty sure he just insulted me."

"You understand their language?" she could hear a chuckle in Jordan's voice.

"When you've been a soldier for as long as I have," she gave the alien a good whack right on the nose, it stumbled backward but regained his balance faster than any Human would have, "you learn to recognize insults. It's something of an interstellar common language. I bet it had something to do with my mother."

"The Anla'Shok are forbidden to gamble," Jordan would have sounded affronted if her weren't so clearly out of breath, "but I imagine you are right."

Between the two of them they finally managed to put the raider out of commission. Susan's nose was bleeding freely and Jordan had a nasty gash on his forehead. Tunam was doing a good job keeping both of the other two at bay although he had not managed to do any serious damage to them and was sporting a black eye and cheek, a bloody lip and his left leg was dragging. His movements were slower and less coordinated.

"Jordan," Susan said, "You distract one while Tunam and I take on the other."

She rushed to help Tunam. Her arms were heavy and her chest ached. She couldn't seem to get enough oxygen. Adrenaline, however, helped and it surged as she found herself facing yet another monster of a beast. It took some doing and twice she was knocked against a wall, hard.

"Ow," she groaned, "I think my bruises have bruises by now."

She looked up to see the raider had unsheathed his knife. It was a nasty thing with jagged edges clearly not meant to cause a nice clean cut. He was rushing towards her. Her back was against the wall, she was pinned between the two sides of an alcove. She watched in a daze as the knife point grew nearer. Then, Tunam placed himself between Susan and the Raider. He could hardly raise his denn'bok but he said clearly, "We live for the One, we die for the One."

Susan regained her senses, "Oh no you don't!" she shouted as she charged forward, denn'bok poised, "No one dies for me except me!"

The air seemed to warp around her and there was a sharp, piercing sound that ripped through her mind. The alien buckled and fell backwards, bleeding from his ears and nose. Quick on his feet, Tunam kicked the raider in the chest and into an adjacent room.. The Minbari Ranger then shut the door behind him and entered the lock code. Susan had no idea what had just happened but there was no time to pause.

They turned to the last of their foes. The third raider, seeing himself surrounded and starting to feel the bruises whipped out a device from a back pocket. Susan didn't know what it was but it was a good bet that it was not good for them.

"Stop!" she ordered to no avail. Susan and the two men rushed forward to try and disabled the alien before he could set off the device, whatever it was. They weren't fast enough, Susan could see it clearly. The large, dark green carapaced finger squeezed the orb-device. There was a low red flash and Susan felt as though she were suffocating. She went blind and cold. She felt herself hit the floor and then passed out.


	4. Chapter 4

She came to in a room full of machines and vaguely medical-looking devices. She was lying in an uncomfortable position on the floor. She slowly became aware of other people nearby and forced herself to awareness. It was uncomfortable.

"Are you alright, Anla'Shok'Na Ivanova?" she turned to face the whisper and found herself almost bumping noses with Jordan.

"You look like hell," she grumbled and tasted fresh blood as a cut on her lip reopened.

"Well," he grimaced, "you're starting to look your age."

"Hey!" she protested weakly as she tried to find enough strength in her arms to prop herself up, "just because I'm irreverent doesn't mean you get to be. Do as I say, not as I do and all that. I'm going to have to discipline you when we get home."

"My pleasure, Ranger One," he had manoeuvred himself behind her and helped her up.

"Thanks. Now stop touching me boy, I'm old enough to be your grandmother."

Whatever he was about to say was cut short as the door slid open and a Drazi stepped in, flanked by two other aliens, one like the ones that had left the Rangers in a pitiful state and the other a smaller one that looked like the bastard child of a Gaim and a sloth.

"What did you do to us?" She demanded, glaring at the Drazi who was apparently the leader.

The Drazi laughed and scratched a spot where his neck met his shoulder apparently unconsciously. Susan shivered imperceptibly at the gesture.

"That was a telepath-bomb," the Drazi said, "we don't like telepaths over here. Our former masters discovered how to knock out a telepath by overloading their brains with a strong pulse of denatured tachyon particles, only at short range though, to their misfortune. It doesn't affect non-telepaths."

"So that's why you had to knock me out the old-fashioned way," Jordan grumbled and rubbed the back of his skull.

"We have to thank you for falling so conveniently into our hands," the Drazi said, "General Ivanova, hero of the Shadow War, among others, and leader of the Rangers, will be a valuable hostage. Or example."

"What do you want?" she asked, "What are you doing here? You must have known that if we won the battle you would be helpless here. You've nowhere to go. If you try to leave this moon you'll be shot out of the sky faster than you can say 'ah hell!"

"Oh, we know there is very little chance of us ever getting off this rock," the Drazi's tone was charged with bitterness, clearly he was not too happy with his assignment, "But that is not our goal."

"What is it then? Terror?"

"Nothing so crude as that," he said, "although it is an added bonus. No. We want technology. What little we have left of our old masters, those you called the Shadows, is ageing and we do not have the knowledge to stop them deteriorating or breed them. Sta'ui know how to prolong life, we want this knowledge, we want all their knowledge so we can repair the organic components of our ships and weapons."

"They'll never give it to you," Susan spat out, "you're wasting your time."

"We'll see about that," he answered with a sneer, "I believe they do not have much experience of pain. We have much. We will teach them."

"You touch a single hair off one of them and I promise you you will learn why they call me the fifth horseman of the Apocalypse."

"Your threats are meaningless," he seemed nonetheless a bit shaken to her, "If you cause trouble, we will simply stun you again. And we might start killing Sta'ui."

Susan growled at his retreating back, annoyed that she couldn't do much else in her state. She needed rest and she was not likely to get any. The three raiders left the room, secure in the knowledge that they could not escape while the corridors were armed and the raiders were on high alert.

She turned to look at the others, her spine cracking with the movement. The Sta'ui were huddled in a corner. Faroush lay unconscious just a little apart from them. Tunam was just starting to recover and wake up.

"How come you woke up faster than them?" Jordan asked as he slowly walked to Sparren who was still clinging to life in spite of his wound.

"I'm hardly a telepath at all," she would have preferred that little detail about her had never come out in public but there was no denying the effect of the shocker had had on her, "they are much more powerful and receptive than I am. And of course, you are to keep this a secret. No one must know."

He looked at her in confusion but could clearly sense her revulsion at being a telepath. But as the Minbari said, "understanding is not required, only obedience" and of course, he would obey. She was Anla'Shok'Na.

She went to kneel by Faroush and cradled her head on her lap. The little alien was breathing well and she could feel, in that strange, peripheral way that she was slowly waking up.

"How are you Sparren," she asked gently.

"I cannot feel my body, Anla'Shok'Na," he replied weakly, "therefore I do not suffer so do not concern yourself with me."

"Bullshit," she mumbled. She left him to Jordan's care and remained by Faroush's side until she woke up. Then, sure that Faroush was alright and having filled her in, she let her rejoin her own people and went off to explore the room. She could feel the Sta'ui's eyes following her progress around the room as she tried to find something she could possibly use to get them out of there safely. Breathers for the other Sta'ui would be a nice start.

The raiders had pushed a lot of things aside in their hurry to clear the center of the room and she could tell some of the more delicate machines had been damaged. She had no idea what they were for and she knew better than to ask.

"Wait a minute," she stopped as she recognized one of the devices. It had been knocked on its side, a serious feat considering its size and weight and jammed between two other machines. She only recognized it by the attached bracers. It was the execution machine. She turned away from it with a disgusted look.

Off to one side, standing vertically against a wall was something the shape and size of a wardrobe. The front was frosted as though it had recently been taken out of the refrigerator. She walked to it slowly. She took hold of the hem of her cloak and wiped some of the frost away at eye level so she could look inside. She looked in on a pale, dead face not a day older than the last time she had seen it. Even his beard was perfectly intact. The instant of recognition stretched on for an eternity as her eyes ran along every line, every curve.

"Anla'Shok'Na Ivanova?" she was startled by Jordan's voice. She looked back to see him looking at her concerned, "What's in there?"

"Oh, nothing much," she said, turning away from the corpse of her friend, frozen in time forever. It felt like a tear in her soul, walking back towards her people seemed to her the hardest thing she had ever done, but she did it nonetheless, "Just a man in cryo-sleep."

"Someone you knew?"

"An old friend," she said, "Nothing to worry over. I knew he was here. It was just a bit of shock to see him, that's all."

"Whatever you say, Anla'Shok'Na," Jordan accepted her explanation gracefully. Once again, Susan was glad she had picked her three most discreet Rangers, even if Jordan took some liberties sometimes.


	5. Chapter 5

"Faroush," the little alien woman turned towards her, "How are your people?"

"They are as well as can be expected," she sounded very sedate but not in her usual way that sprung from true inner peace, "They have not been seriously mistreated. We do not know what is to come next but what you said is true, we will not surrender our technology."

Susan thought that would remain to be seen as the Sta'ui had never so much as imagined a concept such as torture. But she would not let it get to that, "Without telling me how it does it, is there anything in this room we can use against them?"

Faroush and the other scientist had a quick look around and conferred briefly amongst each other in their own language. There seemed to be a lot of confusion as they were forced to think in offensive terms. Susan hoped they were up to the challenge.

"That machine there," Faroush hesitantly pointed towards what looked like a purple lava-lamp with a nozzle, "It produces infrasonic waves that dull nerve endings, it was used in our past to numb an area prior to surgery."

"Can the settings be adjusted to render someone unconscious?"

"No," Faroush said, "But it should slow down their movements drastically if you aim it at their legs."

"That would be helpful," Tunam said, "I am recovered enough that I can fight."

Susan rather doubted it. She thought she ought to have brought more Rangers but the focus of the mission had been stealth. Her only consolation was that she had left orders with the Rangers on her White Star several systems away to come and rescue their butts if they didn't report back after a certain time. At worst, there would be a strike force here in a relatively short while. Of course, that meant that the raiders would probably blow up the place or kill all the hostages first.

Unless...

"There are three access points into this room," she mused out loud.

"The locks have been destroyed," Jordan said, "we can't lock the room from the inside. Although some of that equipment looks pretty heavy."

"My thinking exactly," Susan stood and went to try and push one, "Hmph, yes, heavy. Let's try and block the entrances before they realize what we're doing or come check up on us."

The set to pushing the machine, the Sta'ui helped but it took quite a few of them. They had just managed to block one entrance when they heard footsteps from beyond the door opposite. Well, at least they had managed to cover one entrance point. That was one less place to be attacked from.

Jordan, Tunam and she took their places around the door, out of sight from anyone entering. They had armed themselves with whatever they had been able to find that was heavy enough to do some damage. Susan's weapon was a lab stool. It wasn't very dignified but needs must.

She hadn't wanted to ask either but she had seen no other option. She had Faroush standing to one side, the numbing device in hand, ready to slow down the enemy so the Rangers could knock them out. Faroush had only accepted after Susan had promised that they would apply only the minimum amount of force necessary and that the raiders would not be harmed any further than that. She could see that the other Sta'ui were looking at Faroush with a mixture of wonderment and horror. She didn't think any of them would have accepted the task, regardless. She wondered if it was due to Faroush having been inside her mind. What was in there couldn't have been pretty to see.

The first came through, it was not the Drazi as she had hoped but another alien. She struck him in the face with the stool while Jordan and Tunam reached out into the corridor and pulled in the other alien that had been following. Susan was glad there were only two opponents. Faroush must have set off the numbing device on the second of the raiders as he suddenly seemed to be having a lot of difficulty standing. Jordan and Tunam brought him down quickly while Susan sparred with the other alien with her stool. She had managed to knock his PPG out of his hand. She hoped it wasn't damaged, they could use it later to escape. The two Rangers turned to help her and they quickly dispatched the first one. They stripped both of their weapons and found one of the denn'boks the raiders had confiscated on one. A quick look at it told them it was Sparren's.

"You use it Anla'Shok'Na," Sparren said from his spot on the ground, "I can't do much with it for now."

"You take it easy," she said softly, "Okay, let's block this door before more show up."

The second entrance blocked, they moved on to the third but just as they were starting to make progress, Sparren took a turn for the worse. His breathing became laboured and whizzing. The Sta'ui moved to help him, trying their best to make him comfortable and conferring among themselves in their language.


	6. Chapter 6

Susan and the other two Rangers were exhausted but put their backs into the work and managed to cover the last entrance just as footsteps started to be heard far down the corridor. The locks being destroyed from the inside as well as the large machines and cartons piled high in front of the only entrances also meant there was now no exit from the room and they were locked in. The only way out now was to wait for reinforcements or hope that the raiders would give up and surrender to IA forces.

Susan's worst fear right now was that the telepathic shocker was effective through walls. There was a very real possibility of this as the Sta'ui communicated in large part through telepathy and therefore their buildings were designed not to hinder that. A Sta'ui scientist could easily have communicated with their assistant across several floors. With enough force, the raiders should be able to break through their defences. Jordan would not be able to slow them down much without help and that meant that at least Susan and Tunam needed to be conscious.

They held their breaths as they heard the raiders reach the door and realize that they couldn't open it. They heard as they ran to the other entrances in turn and found them equally impassable. They raised the alarm.

"I guess we wait now," Jordan said, "How long do you think we can hold out?"

"Not long," Susan said dejectedly, "we can slow them down if they start to make their way through but in less than a day, we're going to start getting very thirsty. I don't know about Sta'ui physiology but Human and Minbari don't live long without water. We're going to have to put ourselves into a deep trance if we hope to survive and then, there'll be no one stopping them."

"How long before they send in reinforcements?" Tunam asked, his voice was calm and controlled and suited Susan just fine right now. She knew herself to be terrible at meditation. She had never been able to go into as deep a trance as even the least apt of the Ranger-trainees. She was too high-strung and would probably be the first to die, unless Sparren beat her to it.

She looked back at the youngest of the Rangers. He had joined the Anla'Shok less than a year before and proven himself to be a very good addition. He was originally Worker Caste and understood service better than the Warrior or Religious Caste which were more numerous within the Anla'Shok. She needed to remember to try and recruit more of them when she got back. They understood implicitly the true purpose of the Anla'Shok, the practical purpose served aside from the ideals behind it.

It was difficult to believe that in 2298, after the Worker Caste had been pretty much dictating policy on Minbar for such a long time, that so few of them had joined the ranks of the Rangers. She really didn't want him to die. He was a good boy – maybe a little too subservient but a good boy nonetheless.

"Four days," Susan said, "I counted on possibly having to stake out the place or advance slowly through the building plus maybe making a stealthy exit. I think next time, I'll just go in guns blazing and to hell with subtlety."

The others were quiet for a minute as it sunk in how long they would need to hold out before anyone came to their rescue. They should have been able to make it out of here much faster but there had been no way to plan for telepathic shockers. Those were a very unfair advantage but Susan was glad that the Shadows hadn't managed to develop the technology in time for the war or things would have turned out very differently.

"They're making quite a racket out there," Jordan said. Through the door, they could hear the chatter of several angry voices. There were orders barked out that Susan didn't understand.

The conversation through the door changed pitch and suddenly she heard running. They were running in away from the door. She looked at Jordan and Tunam with concern. Suddenly, the walls rattled as something exploded on the other side. Susan was knocked backward by the sheer force of the sound. Her ears were left ringing. It felt like having been punched in the stomach. She quickly ran to check on the door. The stack covering the door had been slightly pushed away from the door. She looked into the gap and saw the door was dented inwards but still held. She gestured to the others to help her push the stack back against the door.

"Wow," she said, "good door!"

"We've built this base out of our strongest materials," one of the Sta'ui scientists said, "it is meant to withstand a meteoric impact. The doors and interior walls are not quite as sturdy as the external structure but it should be able to resist a few more explosions of the sort we've just experienced."

"Well, if I didn't love your people before, now I certainly would," Susan felt a little comforted. This development afforded them a little extra time.

"What do we do now?" another Sta'ui asked. She was a frail little thing even by Sta'ui standards. Susan wondered if she was an adolescent and asked.

"I was here on work experience," the girl said, "Sta'ui youth must spend three months during the middle years of school working in three different fields so as to choose wisely what they want to do with the rest of their lives. I do not think I wish to work off-world any more."

"Yeah," Susan agreed, "I generally don't recommend it."

"Is it like this everywhere?" the girl asked nervously.

"Not quite," Susan answered, "The heart of the Alliance is much calmer, especially certain places like Minbar, but overall, yeah, the universe is a pretty rough place."

"I do not think I like this universe of yours," the girl started to weep, the tears surprising her into silence, "no, not at all."

The others patted her in the back and gave her hugs. Susan felt ashamed at the state of the universe even though she knew it was most certainly not her fault. In fact, what had she been working for this long if not to make it a better place? She sighed and went to sit by the girl.

"It's not all that bad," she said without conviction, "there are good things as well as bad ones. There is happiness and goodness and peace as well as hate and violence. Give us a chance, someday we'll have evolved beyond the point where we need to cheat and hurt each other."

"How long will that take?"

Susan didn't have a good answer to give her. She couldn't imagine it ever happening herself so how could she sound convincing to a young telepath who would immediately know she was lying? Ironically, she was saved from having to answer by another blast against the same door. Again they moved to push the barricade back against the increasing dent in the door. The edge at the top was starting to pull away from the frame and a trickle of foul smelling smoke floated through. Susan could feel a headache coming on, a combination of stress and the horrible pounding they took from the sonic boom. At least, she comforted herself, the hole in the door would let in some fresh air into the room which was starting to get a little stuffy.

"Hey!" she yelled, "Keep it down out there! Some of us are trying to sleep!"

It was pathetic but it made her feel better. She turned around to find herself facing Jordan with a wry look on his face and an equally as amused, if more discreet about it, Tunam.

"Not quite one of Anla'Shok'Na Ivanova's famed speeches," he said, "Wouldn't you say, Tunam?"

"Indeed," Tunam smiled, "I was only a little bit afraid when I ought to be petrified."

Susan tried to glare but her lips twitched. She poked Jordan in the chest, "You, mister, are a cheeky pain in the butt. You remind me of..."

"Who do I remind you off, Ranger One?"

"Well, him, actually," she said, gesturing to the cryotube. She smiled softly to herself than noticing Jordan's curious look towards the frozen sleeper added, "Why do you think I had him frozen? He just never knew when to leave well enough alone."

She heard Jordan swallowed hard and chuckled quietly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jordan turn to Tunam who gave him a very clear "you have been warned" look.


	7. Chapter 7

Susan left them to their own devices and went to look in on Marcus. It was strange that it was here, right in front of his frozen solid cadaver that she felt most at peace. She had avoided seeing him like this for a long time and now she wondered if she had done the right thing. In retrospect, it hadn't been very respectful of her. The glass in front of his face was starting to frost again. The tube was running on its own emergency generator. Normally, the glass should be perfectly clear. She didn't worry too much about it now though, the generators lasted weeks. With a moment of hesitation, she cleared the glass with her sleeve. She wondered what he would think if he saw her now, almost seventy years old, wrinkled and grey, albeit still spry and feisty and with a good three decades of life at least left ahead of her.

"He would think you are still the most beautiful woman he has ever seen."

She was startled by Faroush's sudden appearance at her side. She looked down at the wise little alien who smiled gently up at her.

"I can hear him in you," Faroush said, "Whenever I am in your mind. It is strange. It is not memory but neither is it a separate entity. I have been meaning to ask if I could look deeper into your mind to try to understand how I can hear someone who is not you within your mind."

"Really?" Susan looked at Marcus in surprise. She deliberated about how much to reveal.

Faroush was possibly the only person she knew that could help her understand what had happened to her that night some forty years before, "He gave his life for me," she said quietly, afraid that any of the others would hear. Marcus' actions had been fairly common knowledge among the higher ranking Anla'Shok of the time but the information had not been shared beyond that and she had no intention to let it get out. It was too intensely personal, "I was fatally injured during the final battle of the Earth Civil War of 2261. I was going to die, I had maybe a week left. He loved me so he used that device we spoke of in the hospital, the one that takes a person's life force and gives it to someone else. I woke up, unable to move. I watched him die, right there, unable to do anything about it. You know what his last words were?"

"I love you," Faroush said. She looked up at Susan with tears in her big eyes, "I never told you why I trusted you so implicitly from the start. It was because of those words which I constantly found floating in your mind. They are always there, in the background. I thought anyone for whom such words held so much importance could not be a bad person."

"I never forgot," Susan said with conviction, "I think Delenn named me head of the Rangers in the hopes that I would come to get used to the idea of people dying for me. She spread the idea around that since I was Sheridan's right hand, I was to finish his work as Entil'Zha, take his place in history. I never wanted to be Entil'Zha. I fought her every step of the way. I agreed to be Anla'Shok'Na but I won't be Entil'Zha. Even now, when Delenn's been in a monastery for years, I still have to fight to get the Rangers to see me only as a temporal leader, nothing more. 'We live for the One, we die for the One'. No thanks. I expect people will die because of me but I refuse to have them die for me."

"It is their choice though," Faroush said, "The Sta'ui understand this at least. Among our people, a Sta'ui may choose to give up their life force for one they care about who is beyond what technology can cure."

"There are things you can't cure?" Susan was surprised after the miracles she had seen Sta'ui medicine accomplish.

"Matters of the heart and the soul," Faroush said, "In these cases, often the patient is not the person dying but the one who cannot let them go. Only that person can decide if they can go on if the beloved is gone. Among the Sta'ui we believe that living for one other person is as valid a life choice as any other path."

"How does the person who remains behind feel about it?"

"She accepts her beloved's choice, usually," there was something in Faroush's voice that suggested she had been in that place but Susan did not dare ask, "and lives for two. She lives the path she chose for herself and by doing so lives for him as well."

"You are a wise people," Susan said softly, "Much wiser than I suspect I will ever be."

"Probably," Faroush answered with a smile, "But don't let that stop you from trying."

They shared a moment of reflective silence. "I do feel bad," Susan admitted, "I feel like I've wasted my life. I know I've done a lot for Earth, for the Alliance. But I don't feel I've contributed anything really meaningful. I've lost so much, Faroush, so many friends, so many loves and nothing I've done could not have been accomplished equally well by someone else."

"I think you are wrong," Faroush said gently but with conviction.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Susan said, "but I'm sorry I ever went to Lari'na'maia. You know you're my closest friend but I feel responsible for what's happened since you opened your world to the Alliance. This mess wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been there in a part-Vorlon ship."

"But we chose to talk to you and to join the Alliance," Faroush took Susan's hand in her own, "We also chose to lower our shields. You are not responsible for that. It is not a choice we regret, not in the way you mean "regret". Our language has a different term for the emotional and intellectual versions of regret. We think it was a bad idea, overall, but not entirely. We have learned much and made good friends. But the responsibility is entirely ours."

"I still feel guilty, irrational or not," Susan squeezed Faroush's hand lightly, "If there was anything I could do to go back in time and make it so we never met, I would."

"Then we would never have become friends," Faroush replied.

"I know," Susan said sadly, "it would be a loss to me, almost too much to contemplate, but it would be better for you. I would be willing to sacrifice everything you've done for me over the past few years so that your people didn't have to die senselessly."

"Ah," Faroush smiled softly, "now you are beginning to understand him."


	8. Chapter 8

The hours passed unbearably slowly. Susan's mind was miles away most of the time. Or more accurately, it was decades in the past. She was thinking of her friends, most of them dead, and decided along the way that if she managed to get out of this particular mess, she would take some leave and spend it on Mars. She hadn't seen Garibaldi in years. She would go there and annoy the hell out of him for a change. She would play with his grandchildren and she would try to enjoy it dammit! She would not even think about how old Michael was getting, about her last surviving war buddy's mortality.

She was getting terribly thirsty. She knew in a distant sort of way that she was also terribly hungry but she had stopped paying much attention to her stomach a long time ago. It just didn't taste the same anymore, it just seemed to turn to ashes in her mouth. She ate only to sustain herself.

They had exhausted the few ration bars they had brought already, having needed the nourishment after all the exercise they had done kicking raider butt. They had all spared part of theirs for Sparren who needed it most. Getting him to eat had been hard, he was drifting in and out of consciousness now but trying his best when he was awake to reassure his colleagues.

Faroush had been talking to her people most of the time, her pitch getting increasingly excited and maybe even angry. Susan hoped she was simply misinterpreting Sta'ui tonality. Susan had asked the Sta'ui if there was any way they could contact anyone off planet to signal their need for reinforcements. The Sta'ui had tried and they thought they might have succeeded but it was difficult to say. They had touched someone's mind briefly, had tried to pass a message, but they said there was some sort of telepathic dampening field around the complex that had gone up almost instantly when they had reached out. They could only wait and see and be glad the field did not extend inside the complete complex.

"I think it's time, Ranger One," Tunam said quietly, "I think we need to go into a meditative state if we are to last any longer."

There was another loud thud against the door. Jordan and Tunam started to get up, slowly and with a lot of difficulty, but she gestured for them to stop, "There's no point in pushing the barricade back," she said, "They'll get through eventually. Let's do it, let's go to sleep, and hope our boys get here soon."

She watched as the others closed their eyes and slowly drifted into a deep trance. She closed her own eyes and tried to do the same without much conviction. She was terrible at this and with all she had to worry about, it was unlikely she'd be able to do it now when she hadn't succeeded in calmer times.

She woke up a couple of hours later after a particularly loud thump on the weakened door. She was sprawled on the ground, her head cushioned against her arm. Her mouth was dry and her throat parched. She had a massive headache to go with it. She took a quick look around and noticed that her Rangers were still in meditation.

"_Good, they won't have noticed I just fell asleep."_

It had not been a particularly good sleep but she felt somewhat rested nonetheless. However, she was desperately in need of water. The Sta'ui were resting now too, in their corner of the room. They didn't have quite the same requirements as the Humans and Minbari but they were conserving their energy anyway. There was also little else to do. She looked at the door and saw that their barricade was slowly crumbling away. She could see the ugly head of a Drakh peering into the room through a nasty hole where the door had literally peeled away from the frame. It had been a long time since she had seen one of their kind.

It wouldn't be long now, another few blows and they would be able to storm the room. She considered going back to sleep and forgetting all about this. She stood and squeezed Jordan's shoulder,

"Wake up Ranger," she said, "it's time to fight."

He opened his eyes and looked disoriented for a few minutes while she moved over to Tunam. She quickly checked that Sparren was still alive. The Sta'ui had been looking after him, making him comfortable and from what she had been able to tell, using some sort of healing power to keep him going.

"_It's true what they say,_" she had thought as she watched, "_sufficiently advanced technology does look like magic."_

The men reached for whatever they could use as weapons, "No, Tunam, here, use this," she handed him Sparren's denn'bok and took the laser scalpel he was wielding, "I'm going to be useless with it," she said when she saw he was about to protest, "you're fresher than me. You know I've always been rubbish at meditating."

Tunam gave her a small amused smiled that cracked his dry lips. She winced internally but his expression did not betray any discomfort.

They stood as best they can in position near the door. One blow and the door buckled. The heavy machines they had piled on each other finally gave way and fell. Pieces rolled down to their feet. The next blow pushed the door away from the frame entirely, the metal just folding in on itself like kitchen foil. The raiders stormed in.

The small scalpel in Susan's hand felt ten times heavier than it really was. She pressed the button on the side and set it for maximum as the first of the raiders made it through the door and the debris. It wasn't slowing them down much but they didn't have much of a chance either way. Jordan was the first to engage. His movements were sluggish but he caught the raider in the nose, it was not one of the tough sons of bitches. It stumbled back against one of the others giving Tunam time to place himself in the most advantageous position for the use of the borrowed denn'bok.

A single Ranger with a denn'bok was as dangerous as three men with knives was the saying. Susan decided that this meant that, in their case, Tunam was evenly matched with the single man with a knife that came at him first. He was sluggish too at first but his movements became more controlled and fluid as his muscles warmed to the exercise and adrenaline compensated for exhaustion and dehydration.

"_I'll have to apologise for underestimating him later," _Susan thought.

She launched herself at the next attacker, scalpel in hand. It's edge shone a pale, silver blue where the cutting laser embraced the dull metal edge of the surgical tool. This was not one of the heavy duty scalpels used in cutting through bone and chitin so she went for the face. She didn't need to kill them, blinding them worked just as well. It was cruel but it was them or her people.

Her opponent screamed as her little blade singed his face, cutting a deep line from temple to temple. She had missed his eyes but the pain must be excruciating. He looked at her through the veil of tears of pain with hate. It didn't unsettle her, she had seen that look on other faces before. She gave him her best smirk and lunged again. She wasn't quite fast enough and got backhanded across the face instead. The world swam before her eyes and only by instinct did she swing around at the right time, her little blade catching the raider in the hand, severing several ligaments as easily as if they had been spider web. He cradled his hand against his chest with his able arm, howling in pain. He was pushed forward by those trying to come in and whose path he was blocking but he shied away from her, caring only for his suffering. Susan looked for a spark of victory in her to push her forward but felt only a tired.

The fight seemed distant, she couldn't hold on much longer. The other two were putting in a very brave effort but they were slowly being forced to retreat further into the room and more of them were able to slip into the room. They were quickly surrounded and it was clear in the raiders' expressions that they were not interested in subduing them any more. This time they meant to kill the Anla'Shok. They had lost their interest as hostages.


	9. Chapter 9

They all raised their weapons bravely, knowing there was no way they would win this battle but all willing to fight to the death. In a way, Susan was relieved. This she was prepared for. She knew what it felt like to be dying, to give in to it, let go of the world. It had been the last time she had ever felt completely free. She would give her all to this fight, she could do nothing less, but deep down, she was ready for it to be all over. She gathered up her strength for one last taunt. She licked her parched lips, there wasn't much moisture there but enough for them to come apart.

"The only regret I have," she croaked, "is that your ugly mugs are the last thing I'm going to see. Well, what are your waiting for?"

The lead raider, the Drazi, raised his gun, his expression stony. In his eyes, he could see only weariness. His shoulder twitched. Susan wondered briefly who this Drazi was when he was not controlled by a a Keeper. Surely not a very nice person to begin with. Judging by the number of raiders that were from Alliance worlds, she decided he must have been a fairly powerful pirate before the Shadows' former servants decided they needed an army and he had been absorbed against his will. It made her feel almost sorry for him. Almost, his type caused too much grief to innocents.

She was looking straight into the barrel of his gun. She smiled, daring him to shoot. She took a deep breath and prepared for the inevitable. Then, his arm twitched. It was barely perceptible at first and then it jerked noticeable. The Drazi looked as surprised as Susan. Then one by one, the other raiders started twitching, their legs refusing to stay still. They were surprised and scared. In his panic, one of them raised his weapon without taking aim and fired into the circle.

"Duck!"

Susan felt herself been pulled down to the ground. Her own legs were too weak to fight the movement which was fortunate as the shot barely missed the spot where her head had previously been. She lifted her head and found that both Jordan and Tunam had forced her down and were shielding her with their bodies. She felt a rush of affection for them and annoyance too. More shots were fired as the raiders twitched and seized uncontrollably and fired their weapons at the invisible enemy. There was a shower of sparks behind them towards the back of the room and the sound of broken glass. At the sound, Susan instinctively turned to see what had happened.

"NO!"

She watched as Marcus' body slowly fell out of the broken cryotube and crumpled on the ground. She wanted to run to it, make sure it wasn't damaged, find a way to get him back into the cold where his tissues would be protected. She could almost see him decaying right in front of her as the warmth of the room worked his way through the chill of suspension. She was pinned under her two Rangers and heavy weapons fire. Then, the raiders started falling and seizing on the ground. Their arms and legs jerked about for several minutes and then stopped.

They stood up and looked around confused. The room was eerily quiet. She couldn't tell if the raiders were dead or simply unconscious. The Sta'ui were cowering in a corner, they were all either crying freely or staring blankly at the scene in the middle of the room. Then she remembered Marcus.

"Oh no! Oh no!" she muttered as she ran the short distance to were his body was lying, face down. She turned him around, cradling his head and torso, "Shit! Marcus! Shit!"

She looked helplessly at the destroyed stasis chamber and around the room. It was the only one, there was nowhere to store his body before the natural process of decay set in. They had waited so long in the first place to put him in suspension.

"Anla'Shok'Na," she looked up at the sound of Tunam's voice. He didn't finish what he was going to say, the look on her face probably telling him and Jordan all they needed to know.


	10. Chapter 10

Faroush walked to Susan's side and put her arm around her. It barely reached all the way around but Susan leaned into her. She was fighting hard to remain composed when inside she felt like something was dying. The only thing that had kept her from crumbling this long was the thought that any day now, things would be made right and Marcus would be brought back to life so that he wouldn't have died for her after all and she wouldn't have to carry that guilt any more.

She was silent for several long minutes, feeling Marcus' clammy skin slowly softening under her hands. She felt numb to the core now, she held on to the thought that as long as one of her friends, one of the people who remembered her as she used to be, remained then she wouldn't be completely alone. She pulled Marcus closer to her. Faroush was whispering something in her ear and her mind but she couldn't hear it. Her eyes strayed around the room and looked at the bodies of their enemies. Jordan and Tunam were inspecting them, carefully avoiding looking at her, giving her some privacy in their own way.

"_Let go,"_ she heard in her mind, the soft feathery whisper that characterised Faroush's mind-voice, _"Let go, Susan, he made his choice long ago and you cannot save him now. You have been carrying him within you for years. This is but a shell."_

"_You don't understand. You don't understand."_

"_Nothing has changed. Nothing at all. All you've lost is your security blanket, nothing more."_

"_You created the machine! You should have brought him back! You should have worked harder."_

"_I'm sorry, the knowledge was lost and we were hoping that you would accept what has happened and moved on. We wanted the best for you."_

_  
"The best for me? The best for me would have been having Marcus back so I could make up for his sacrifice, so every breath didn't burn me. I gave him nothing but grief! I hate him! I hate him so much for dying! I hate Marcus and I hate Talia and John and Stephen and my mother and every single one of them that had to go and die before me."_

"_Shame on you! You are selfish and cruel. Why should it be better for you to die and others to live with your loss?"_

Susan looked at Faroush hurt and angry. What did an alien, one who had never known such pain and loss know of what Susan was feeling? Of what was right? She took a deep, painful breath and expelled it. It sounded almost like a growl. Her arm slackened and she slowly laid Marcus' head on the ground. She stood up in one jerky movement. She pulled away from Faroush's touch. Susan straightened her clothes and pulled her messed up hair into a tight bun. She felt hard and cold. Faroush looked shocked and sick. Her hands were pressed tightly against her temples.

"Jordan, Tunam."

"Yes, Anla'Shok'Na," they answered promptly but cautiously.

"Take whatever weapons you can find on them and scout out the complex," she said, "I want to know if these are all of them. See if you can find a communication device of some sort."

They looked startled at her sudden harshness. They were so tired but they set to picking their foes' pockets. They found the last three denn'boks and wordlessly passed Marcus' back to her. Susan's hand seemed to resist when she reached for it. She forced her hand to tighten around the familiar handle.

They left the room as quickly as their exhaustion let them, stumbling along and holding on to wall for support. She turned around and looked down at Faroush. She felt nothing, not even for the little alien who had managed to break through so many of her natural barriers.

She kicked one of the limp bodies on the ground and it did not react. She wished she could cry but she felt that even if she had not been so dehydrated, she would not have been able to. Tears healed and she was not sure if she could heal now that the last bit of hope she had left in her had been taken away. It had been all that remained of the closet optimist she used to be, the one who hid behind a cloak of cynicism.

"What happened here?" she asked, "To them?"

Faroush took in a shaky breath and looked around. Her shoulders slumped and started to shake. Tears started to drip from her face and fell on Marcus' forehead. It seemed fitting that someone should cry over him, even if not entirely for him since she couldn't herself.

"It was us, all of us," Faroush whispered only just audibly, "we couldn't watch you be killed. We couldn't stand by and do nothing. All of us. Together. I told them what I did to the one outside, I showed them in my mind how it was done. They learned from me. It was hard. We had to fight ourselves to do what we did. We broke into their minds and … stopped them."

"You stopped them? How?"

"It wasn't that hard, not with all of us together," Faroush seemed to choke on the words but Susan had no pity in her at the moment, "they didn't think to block us. They thought we were harmless. Were just bystanders."

"The seizures?"

"We hesitated," Faroush sniffled loudly, "We were afraid and we couldn't bring ourselves to just shut them down but then we did. We are so ashamed!" she wailed and the others, those who were not shocked into an almost catatonic state wailed with her.

"You save my men's lives," Susan said without conviction, "you did a good thing."

"No," Faroush sobbed, "no, we did the necessary thing but it was an evil thing nonetheless. All life is precious and should not be taken forcibly."

"_And so", Susan thought, "my final accomplishment, the complete corruption and ruin of the Sta'ui. Nothing good ever survives after I touch it."_


	11. Chapter 11

They took over the rest of the base fairly easily over the next 24 hours. They worked their way outward slowly, barricading themselves in periodically to recover their strength. They had quickly found the raiders' stores as well as the Sta'ui hydroponic food gardens where they had been able to eat and drink enough to recover from their imprisonment.

There weren't many raiders left. The moment they had lost contact with the majority of their numbers, they had started to move in but there were too few to pose a problem, especially with the Sta'ui helping to clear the way. They moved in small groups and for a few hours they waged a war on several tiny fronts.

They contacted the rescue party and were picked up quickly. There was Sta'ui medical personnel at hand. Sparren would recover, for which Susan was infinitely grateful but their spirits, at least hers and Faroush's, were more severely wounded. Susan could not even rejoice in the fact that she was now sitting in a garden on Lari'na'maia. Even looking down a soft hill of green velvety grass, surrounded by flowers she had never seen before, no Human had ever seen before, she felt tired and empty. She knew she would need to rally her strength again to be Anla'Shok'Na Ivanova again soon. The thought filled her with dread but life, it seemed, meant to go on, with or without her approval.

She reached into her pocket and drew out her ALLI, Alliance Long-range Link Interface, and plugged her Link into its side. It took a moment as the portable communication device connected with the receptors on the nearest Jumpgate. The connection was weak as the Sta'ui did not have ALLI compatible satellites to boost the signal.

She pressed the quick dial buttons on the thin touchscreen and waited for the call to be picked up.

"Susan?"

"Hey Michael!" she said as cheerfully as she could managed as the face of her old, very bald, friend appeared on the screen.

"Susan! Hey! Long time no see," he said with a sincere smile that comforted Susan more than she had expected, "You know, I was just thinking about you the other day."

"You were?" she said, amused.

"Yeah, yeah," he leaned in closer to the camera on his side, "I've been hearing the craziest rumors. You wouldn't believe what the word on the street is! Anyway, I was thinking 'Nooooo, there's no way!' and 'the Susan Ivanova I know would never stoop to that level'..."

"Michael! Michael," Susan chuckled, "what rumors?"

"Well," he said, drawing out the 'l', "I heard from what I thought was a reliable source, that you had to use the Star Fart manoeuvre to get out of a tricky spot not long ago. Clearly, my source has lost its marbles."

Susan found herself groaning internally and rolling her eyes but did not deny the fact or rob Michael of his small victory, "We prefer to call it the 'Garibaldi Manoeuvre'."

"Oh no you don't," he said, "d'you think I want my name associated with such an embarrassing trick? I have a financial empire to rule!"

"You need to learn to be proud of your accomplishments," she said, "But yes, I had to resort to dump the White Stars' pre-treatment engine waste on the bad guys. And you were right, that was a very impressive explosion."

He laughed long and hard, enjoying his victory a little more because it annoyed Susan. She let him gloat, feeling a lot of affection for the last of her surviving friends, aside from Delenn of course, who was shut up in some monastery and might as well be dead for all the contact she had with her.

"Anyway, Susan," he said when he was done mocking her, "to what do I owe the pleasure of your call?"

"I'm sure you know all about it by now," she said quietly, sampling the words in her mind before speaking them, "but I've just had a couple of rough days," his face became more sombre as he took in her meaning, "I am so tired, Michael, I'm starting to lose my touch. I need to take some leave and I was wondering if I could come and spend some time with you and your family on Mars."

"Oh hey! Sure," he smiled and opened his arms ,"mi casa es su casa! You're always welcome here, for as long as you can stand being around me."

"I survived you for four years," she said, "don't dare me."

"Hey, if you want to stay for four years here, I won't mind, I can always use another brilliant mind to bounce ideas off," Lise appeared on screen and stood behind Michael.

"Hi Susan," she said, "It'll be Independence Day soon, the whole family will be over, we'd love for you to join us!"

"And I've almost got her convinced to serve real pork too!" Michael added, patting his wife's hand, "not that vegetable substitute my doctor's making me eat. So what if my blood pressure's a bit high?"

Susan laughed, "Well, being Anla'Shok'Na means I get to decide when to take my leave so, count me in. I'll write to you when I know when I'll be there."

They said their good-byes, Michael making her promise to take lots of photos of Lari'na'maia and to bring alien souvenirs that no one else in the known universe would have. Susan ended the call and felt fractionally better for a time. It would be good not to have to go home to Minbar immediately, to her empty, if tastefully decorated, apartment.

"Susan?"

She turned around on the grass to see Faroush walking slowly towards her in a formal tunic. She stashed away her ALLI and stood up.

"Yes, Faroush, what is is?" they were awkward around each other. There was something now hanging unsaid between them and they had to tread a very fine line skirting the issue.

"The Council wants to see you," she said, "Would you come with me please?"


	12. Chapter 12

Like most Sta'ui architecture, the ceilings were almost too low to comfortably accommodate Susan's height except in the occasional lobby or auditorium. The Council had chosen one such to talk to her, aware that more often than not, she had to walk stooped or bowing. She took a seat on a chair uncomfortably tight around her thighs. She felt like a grown-up at the children's table even though, if anything, she was the child and they the adults.

"Thank you for accepting to see us, Anla'Shok'Na Ivanova," an ageing female said.

"I'm honored that you would allow me on your planet and to be in your presence, ma'am," she replied politely. This was, for all intents and purposes, the Sta'ui government. In practice, there was no ruling body, projects were organized and people volunteered. There were thousands of small hierarchies but all worked towards the common good.

"We have much to thank you for, Susan Ivanova," another council member said, "so what I am going to say next may anger you."

Susan was puzzled, "Go on?"

"We have learned much about what happened during the recent events from Faroush," he said, his voice low and shy, "we have learned what our people there did in order to survive. We feel that being in contact with your people has brought out the worst in us."

She didn't know know what to say, whether she should counter the accusation or agree. Either position was indefensible.

"Understand, we do blame you or your kind," he added quickly, afraid of causing her pain, "we blame only ourselves. We are clearly not as enlightened as we thought. We find that we have been very arrogant to think ourselves so far advanced when clearly we have not worked out the issues that led our ancestors to do many terrible things. We have been neglecting our advancement and concentrated on temporal matters."

She was going to speak but another one stopped her gently by touching her arm, " We have come to a decision," this one said, "we hope you will respect our choice and help us. Faroush has told us much of what she has seen in your mind and we think perhaps this will be good for you, our closest friend, as well as for us."

So they had another mission for her, it seemed. Susan was all ready to reject whatever they were going to ask her to do, or put it off until after her much deserved leave of absence. She was also feeling a little used. The Sta'ui hadn't really asked her for much in the past and they had certainly given much but she was tired and had lost more for them than she had for almost anyone else. She had had to bury a good friend too recently because of them. Well, it wasn't their fault exactly but close enough that it made almost no difference.

"Do you know anything about time travel?" he asked.

"Not much," she reflected back to the theft of Babylon 4, "I mean, I have experienced it to a certain extent." She told them about what had happened and some of its consequences but skipped over the part where Sinclair had gone back in time to become Valen. They nodded occasionally or looked at her with wonderment and interest in their eyes.

"Why do you ask?" she finished.

"We have been thinking that the best thing for us would be to never meet your people, or at least," he amended, "not for a while still."

Another took over, "What we are proposing is that you travel back in time and make certain that we do not come into contact with your civilisations when we did."

"You can do that?"

"It is not easy and generally speaking, time is best left alone. But yes, we have the technology to create controlled rifts in time."

Susan was gobsmacked. The scope of what they were asking her to do was beyond anything she had ever imagined. It was completely insane!

"I don't think I can do that," she stammered, "I don't know if I have the right to mess with history. It's not just my life that would be affected."

"The change would be minimal overall," he replied, "You have played an integral part in the building of the Interstellar Alliance but you were not one of its main players after the events that took you away from Babylon 5."

Susan had thought herself relatively unimportant to the grand scheme of things for a long time but hearing it from someone else was still hurtful. She found that, in spite of the cold façade she tried to maintain, she still wanted to have made a difference in the lives of people. With a twinge of guilt, she thought of the difference she had made in the Sta'ui's life.

"You kept out of history's way on purpose and that's what makes you the perfect person to ask this from," the female councillor said gently, "we also trust you and no one else to not take advantage of what you would know of the future."

"Please don't feel that we are discounting your life," another female said, she hadn't talked before but she sounded younger than the others, "It is as important to us as our own. We mean to make you the Caretaker of the future but we also want you to be happy. History will attend to itself, your purpose would be to keep your people and ours from joining, you may live your life however you please."

"That is why," one of the males said, "we have selected what Faroush tells us is a turning point in your life. We want to send you back just before the events that have led you to be what we consider one of the most tragic figures in history so that you may alter those events as well so that Susan Ivanova may have the happy ending she deserves."

She gasped at the implication. She was fairly sure she knew what movement Faroush might have told them about and the thought that she could change was had happened was so tempting she almost said yes immediately. But she had a duty towards the countless lives that could be affected. She wasn't Jeffrey Sinclair. She didn't know how things would turn out if she went back to the past and she certainly didn't think she was as wise as he was. "And you say this would not change things for the worst for everyone else?"

"Things would be different, for better or worse is impossible to say. These things are only obvious with plenty of hindsight," the Sta'ui replied, "What we can tell you is that history is very difficult to change. It takes care of itself. You may change the details but in the end, what must be will be, even if the road is winding."

"I'll need to think about it."

"Take all the time you need," the first female said, "we have as much time as we want now."


	13. Chapter 13

"Well," Susan looked down at the planet from the observation deck of the first Sta'ui interstellar craft, "I never thought I'd be here again. It looks exactly the same – aside from the fact that there's no Babylon 5 and there's a ring of debris around the planet."

"The remains of the station," Dravi, the captain, said, "It was determined that it was unnecessary to clean the area as they will eventually be drawn into the atmosphere of Epsilon 3 and burn up. They are no danger to navigation there."

"And it was cheaper than cleaning it up, I bet. Draal is ok with it?" She asked somewhat sceptical.

"Oh, I don't mind," she turned around to find herself facing a ghostly projection of the old Minbari looking exactly the same as he had the last time she had seen him, "I like having it there actually, it makes me nostalgic for the good old days. It gets so lonely now sometimes with just Zathras for company. At least you people put up a good show every other day."

"You're looking good," Susan remarked.

He let out a hearty laugh, "I know, pretty spry for a very old man! The Great Machine has done wonders for my complexion."

"I'll take your word for it," he walked to stand next to her and looked out into space, "Draal, does the Machine have enough power to do this? If I remember correctly, it was all you could do to keep the time distortion field stable when we went to steal Babylon 4. Are you sure you can send me back?"

"Oh yes, quite sure," he said, his deep voice calm and reassuring, "The Machine is drawing its power from the core of the planet and the Sta'ui have designed a series of tachyon stabiliser rings that will channel the tachyon pulse through the center of the rings, giving us more accurate control of the beam and reducing the loss of tachyons in transit, boosting the overall efficiency of the system."

"Hmm," she said, "Now I wish I hadn't asked. Do what you have to do. I just need to take care of a couple of things before we go ahead."

"We'll be ready for you in just under 8 hours," Draal said jovially, "Normally, I would counsel against this sort of tampering with time but it is an excellent opportunity to put something to practice that I've seen in the Great Machine, a living experiment about the nature of time! Please don't forget to hand my younger self the data crystals I gave you."

"I won't," she promised before excusing herself to go back to her quarters.

"Listen," she said into the emptiness, "I know I haven't been Your most devout follower. I've done my share of reprehensible things and I have lost faith in You several times. I don't know if what I'm doing is right. I think it is. I think I'm putting something right anyway. But if it isn't and I die in this crazy attempt to mess with the universe, do You think you could find it in You to make the end quick and clean? If not, well, it's okay, I understand."

She took her bag and placed Draal's data crystals deep in the pocket on her flight jacket, especially reinforced to deal with the stress of time travel. She took a final cursory look at the bare room, made sure she wasn't forgetting anything. She turned off the lights and slung the bag over her shoulder and walked out.


	14. Chapter 14

She checked the small shuttle that would take her into the past for fissures or leaks although the technicians had already gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. She chucked the bag contained the only belongings she cared about, very little considering what a long and eventful life she had led, into the back and hesitated.

A cold wave of fear washed over her at the thought of going back. She was giving up her life in a way. Certainly it wasn't a great life, and it wasn't a happy life but it was hers. Even ignoring what this could mean for people whose names she didn't even know, it was a huge decision to make and now that the moment had come to do it, she was afraid. She didn't know if she could go through with it. What if she went back, changed things and everything still ended up going to hell for her? What if she stepped on the wrong butterfly and made things worse instead of better.

_I mean really, who the hell are the Sta'ui to decide that things ought to be changed just so that they never have to come out of their bubble?_

When she considered the things she might be able to change by going back in time, she got a cold sweat. She could save Marcus, she could stop Lyta from despairing and turning into a terrorist, help her fight the Psi Corps without so much bloodshed, stop Lennier and her from ending up dead under the rubble of Psi Corps headquarters, keep Stephen from getting killed...

It was so tempting to take the future into her own hands and make sure she kept what was precious to her and damn the rest of the universe. She didn't think she had the fortitude, the moral fiber, to resist and watch people she cared about suffer.

_And why should I? Maybe it's like the Sta'ui said, history will attend to itself. What are we all, Stephen, Lennier, Lyta, Marcus and I but cells in a great organism? Whether we live or die, act or stay still, the universe will take care of itself, go whichever way it wants to go. A few cells won't change what happens to the entire body. What was it Delenn said? If one of us falls, someone else will rise to take their place? Wherever, whenever, we are, we are always in the right place at the right time?_

She realized then that even in her fear and confusion that she had already made up her mind. So far, she had only gone along with the plan but now she was truly a real participant. Whether the Sta'ui's trust in her integrity was well-founded or not, she would piloting that shuttle into the rift in time that Draal and the Sta'ui had created. She was only justifying her actions to herself. She didn't know what the right course of action was and she was making it acceptable for herself to act in whichever way she saw fit. After all, if it was okay to save Marcus, why would it be unacceptable to save other lives that were precious to her? One life, several, it was all the same.

She strapped herself to her seat, her mind oddly calm, the world muffled around her. She worked through the the take-off procedures and flew out of the vessel and straight towards quadrant 14. She did not spare a glance for the ship after she turned her back on it. Her eyes where into the still invisible area of space where time was no longer linear.

She activated her stabiliser, the same one, she thought, that she had used long ago on Babylon 4 so she wouldn't become unstuck in time and dove into the rippling rift. It was like flying through the haze created by the heat of a bonfire but lasted only second.

_No. There are limits to what I can do. I will be the Caretaker of Time as best I can. I know how things turn out, I will save what I can but my first duty must be to the future._

The passage was very quick and she found herself in normal space in a matter of seconds. She looked out at the stars with wonder. She had travelled back to a turning point not only in her life but in the history of the IA. The IA didn't even exist yet! It was all happening here again and she would get to witness it again with the eyes of experience. She turned the ship around briefly and scanned quadrant 14 for a time disturbance and found nothing there. Then her communication console started beeping. She hesitated briefly then opened the channel. The deep voice of Draal startled her. She had just left him moments ago – would leave him – whatever the tense was supposed to be.

"Ship, identify yourself," he said in a rather menacing tone, "I know you have travelled through a rift in time. What are you motives?"

"Draal," she said, "It's me, Susan Ivanova. It's a long story but I've come from the future. I have some data crystals here for you that I think explain everything."

"You've come to change future events?" he said, "I would have you know, young lady, that time is not something to be trifled with!"

"Well, I could argue with you about it," she said, "But I happen to know you'll change your mind about it eventually. I can't stop by the planet yet, though. I have a mission to accomplish first but I'll be with you soon."

"Where are you going and what are you planning to do?"

"I'm going to save two lives, Draal," she sighed as she keyed in the course towards the Babylon 5 jumpgate, a long trip in normal space but she had just enough time if Draal and Faroush had correctly worked out the time coordinates, "I'm sure you don't see anything wrong with that."


	15. Chapter 15

Dear reader,

I have been struggling with the continuation of this story, not because I did not want to write it but, as I have realised over the past few months, because I feel this story should end here.

That said, I still went ahead and tied up all the loose ends. It is fanfiction after all, so even though I think JMS would probably have left us with an open-ended story, I'm doing it my way.

I cried when I wrote the following conclusion. I hope you do too, so I'm not too lame for it :)

I hope you have enjoyed reading my fanfic, all the best.

Alphecca

And now, for the conclusion...

* * *

The battle was going to hell and Susan knew it. It was messy and dirty and it broke her heart to fight her own people. Both White Stars and Earth Alliance cruisers were being torn to pieces before her eyes and yet, what mattered most to her was to give her friends enough time to rescue John. There would be no winner in this fight and all she could hope for was that her friends would make it out alive. Oh, what would she give to be facing the Shadows again instead!

She shouted orders left and write, some in English, some in Minbari and Marcus translated as necessary. He was as annoying as ever but she was glad that he was there. There was a bright flash of light just ahead as something or other exploded. The view screen, damaged earlier in the battle took too long to adjust, Susan had to turn around to shield her vision. Her eyes watered and she had to blink several times.

She was momentarily confused and had to blink again, her reflection confused her. She ran her hand down her hair but the reflection did not run its hand down its own white hair. White, not red. The face was wrinkled and the eyes hard and cold. She shivered. The reflection, the vision, for there was nothing for her to reflect off, raised her hand and made a motion. _Come here_, it seemed to be telling her.

_Is this a death vision?_, she wondered, _Is this a ghost come to warn me? I am ready._

As if in a daze, she took a few steps. She bent down to pass under the rail behind the captain's chair when she stood up again between the two consoles, manned one by her Minbari navigator and the other by Marcus, the apparition had vanished.

"Commander Ivanova? Susan?"

Susan turned to Marcus who gave her a puzzled look, "Are you alright?"

"Manoeuvres Mister Cole," she snapped, "Keep your eyes on the action!"

"Yes, ma'am," he said, sounding a little offended but springing to action.

Susan threw one last glance at the door to the bridge. A young Ranger stumbled as the ship buckled under their feet. Susan turned around to face the viewscreen. A large piece of debris was flying straight at them. She gasped and took a step back, her arms flew to cover her face. Everything shook around her, she felt sparks raining on her, burning through her uniform and scoring her bare skin. Her head hit the edge of a console and she felt nothing more.

* * *

She felt nothing, saw nothing and yet she knew she was conscious. She though, _I must open my eyes_, and did so. It took her brain an age to make sense of what her eyes saw. _Infirmary, low light, White Star, _she named each thing in turn and they started to form a picture in her mind. Then she sensed motion and again her bruised brain had to make sense of the scene. _Going down_. The bed was moving and settled when it was parallel with the floor. She sighed, yes, that was better, she had never liked the Minbari custom of sleeping at an angle. She tried to turn her head but could not. Her eyes told her, after a bit of rolling around that her head was held firmly in place. But there! Just beyond her field of view stood someone. _Brown_, was all she could describe it as. Then it stepped closer and she saw it wore a hood. Her eyes slipped down the bright green gem on its chest. _Ranger_, she thought. With every word she formed in her mind, her mind became clearer.

The Ranger reached thin and age-stained hands to the hood of the cloak and pulled it back. It made no sense to her at first and then a memory came back, _the apparition that had come to her on the bridge_. She tried to talk, to ask it what its purpose was, her voice came out breathy and broken.

"Are you the ghost of Christmas past then?"

The apparition was surprised into an involuntary smile. It shook her head.

"I cannot stay long," it said, "I came here only to tell you one thing: stop fighting and live, Susan Ivanova. Your life did not end with your mother's, or Ganya's. Stop sabotaging yourself and live!"

"Who are you?" Susan croaked again with urgency, her body buckled against her restraints.

"No one, now," the apparition said and as it reached up to slip the hood over its head again the cloak shifted aside, just a little, just enough, and Susan saw and recognised what was attached to the belt underneath. Her eyes opened wide in surprise and sudden understanding then the "apparition" left the room swiftly without a sound or another look.

* * *

A few minutes later, while she was still reeling with the revelation she had just had, Marcus marched into the room with a preoccupied look on his face. Then he saw her eyes open and his face lit up in a smile of pure happiness. Susan saw it, not as she had seen it a countless times before, something had changed, something small but essential.

"You're awake!" he rushed the rest of the way to her side and took her hand.

"She's awake?" a deep voice filled with emotion said.

"John," Susan said and both John and Delenn stepped close enough that she could see. There were tears in his eyes.

"You had us really worried there for a while," he said, choking on the words. She saw Marcus look away, a tell-tale wetness in his eyes too, "We really thought... Well nevermind that now. You will recover and the battle is won. Everything will be alright."

Susan smiled and closed her eyes, exhausted.

* * *

It was a maddeningly long time before she was well enough to stand and take short walks around the station. She stayed in Blue Sector, where the media could not reach her. The requests for interviews had started pouring in the moment things calmed down enough back on Earth and Luchenko's official swearing-in as president of the Earth Alliance, John Sheridan's resignation from Earthforce and his becoming president of the Interstellar Alliance were no longer news enough for people who had been starved of proper information for years. She had denied them all.

Marcus was her most regular visitor, even more than Stephen, who was, after all, her physician. She found that his presence did not irritate her as it had once and she used her many hours of idleness trying to understand why and what to do about it. She had much to puzzle over.

She kept informed of the goings-on on the station, she was nominally in charge although it was under the understanding that Lieutenant Commander Corwin would run things unless something really required her presence. He was chuffed at the promotion to second in command of the station. It was very cute, she thought, but she would never tell him so. She believed in a tough love approach to command. He had so far only consulted her once, when a short but powerful energy pulse shot out from the surface of Epsilon 3.

They decided to ignore the transmission, if Draal had a penpal somewhere in the universe, it was none of their business. And getting the crabby old man to tell them anything was harder than trying to convince Zathras that the glass was half full. Better to ignore him altogether.

She finished signing the digital document and managed to send the transmission through just as the doorbell rang.

"Come," she said, and the door opened. Marcus came through, wearing only the dark shirt and pants the rangers wore beneath their heavy cloaks.

"Hi," he put down a stack of magazines on the table by the door, "Sorry, am I interupting something?"

"Not at all," she reached for her cane and headed for the sofa, "I just finished. I was sending my letter of resignation."

"You're resigning?" he looked at her completely bewildered, "What for? I thought Sheridan had arranged amnesty for all the Earthforce personnel that served under him during the war?"

"It wouldn't be right," she said stubbornly, "They'll always see me as a traitor. The person who shot down her own people, friends, people she trained and fought with... I can't stay on Babylon 5, I'll always be seen as the enemy if I do."

"But... You're as career-military as they come!" he insisted, "Call them back! You'll be miserable if you resign! Didn't they offer you the command of a ship? Take that at least, if you don't feel ready to take over Babylon 5!"

She smiled slightly. She couldn't deny that commanding her own ship had always been her dream. For a while, during the height of the Shadow War, when what she fighting for was clear and noble, when she knew her enemy was evil and B5 was a shining beacon in space, she had thought there could be no greater goal in life than to be worthy of commanding the station. But now it seemed to her a small, grey tin hulk, full of echoes and ghosts. She was spent. And yet, Marcus' suggestion lit something up in her that she had thought extinguished for good. Her own ship... that would be exhilarating. It would be a good life...

She huffed in annoyance and glared at him.

"What? What did I do now?"

"Well, I'm going to look like an idiot telling them to disregard the letter of resignation I sent just a minute ago... This is all your fault!"

He grinned cheekily, "So you're saying that my opinion is important to you, then?"

"Hah!" She snorted, "Not at all!"

"Oh, so who influenced your decision then?" He wiggled his eyebrows and made her laugh.

She thought deeply for a second, "It was the ghost of Christmas future."

* * *

Susan looked at herself in the mirror, it was odd to be wearing an EarthForce uniform again. The rank insignia felt all wrong as well. She would just have to get used to it all over again. Her ship wa docked and waited only for her to finish saying her good byes. She had slowly walked from one end of the station to the other, remembering,_ this is where I met John, this is where I had a drink with Talia, this is where Stephen and I sang during Karaoke night, this is where I slapped Londo for pinching my ass..._ She laughed quietly to herself the whole time, not even caring if people thought she had been addled by her concussion. Yes, there were hard, bitter memories here, but it would be the good ones that she would be taking with her.

She stopped just outside what was still John's office. He had recently come back, on her ship in fact, supposedly to put his affairs in order and to run the IA until the new Headquarters were ready on Minbar. The President, funny to think of him like that, was inside and so was Marcus. She did not walk in, they were busy in talks and she decided to stay outside and wait for her turn. The door was open.

"Are you sure about this Marcus?"

"There is nothing else I can do, Entil'Zha," Marcus answered, his voice was low and sorrowful, "I know I dishonour myself by asking to be released of my oath, but, I know that the path I must follow lies elsewhere and I cannot remain with the Anla'shock when at a word from her, I would go to the ends of the universe and abandon my duties."

"Then you are absolutely sure about this," Sheridan sighed.

"Where she goes, I will follow," Marcus did not waver.

"Very well," Sheridan's tone took on that commanding, powerful quality that made him larger than life, "Then, Ranger Marcus Cole, I release you of the oath you took before my predecessor and again before me. You are no longer one of the Anla'shock but are only Marcus Cole, human, friend. You may keep your weapon and your honour, for your flawless service, your friendship and your loyalty. Yes, your loyalty," Susan guessed that something in Marcus' expression had betrayed his sense of unworthiness, "Delenn often reminds me that the calling of one's heart is the only call that one must absolutely obey, there is no oath that is more powerful than this calling. I am sorry to see lose you, my friend, but I can think of no person more deserving of your loyalty and your...affection... than Susan Ivanova. Rise, Marcus. You are free to follow your own path. I wish the best."

"Thank you, Entil'Zha," he hesitated, "Mr. President."

There was a pause and the sound of a manly embrace. The tears were flowing freely down Susan's cheeks. She had not known what Marcus' plans were or she would have tried to dissuade him.

"Marcus?"

"Mr. President?" Marcus' voice was close to the door now, Susan's instincts were to run away but her body was frozen in place.

"Take care of her. She's very important to me."

"I will."

Susan was still standing there, in tears, when he stepped out of the office. He stopped, stunned by her presence. He quickly took in her expression and her presence. They looked long into each other's eyes, a new understanding between them. Susan closed the gap between them, she buried her face in his shoulder. He held her.

* * *

Prologue:

"Are you happy?"

"No," she said, "But I am... at peace."

"Well, that's something, at least."

"Yes," she smiled, it reached her tired eyes and for a brief instant, the emptiness was filled with hope, "Yes. It's definitely something."

"How did you know it would work? You hardly talked to her..."

"I told her enough," she sat on the floor and rested her back against his legs, "The Universe took care of the rest. I can only hope things will remain, if not the same, similar at least."

"What about your other friends? Will you go to them now?"

The new light in her eyes, dimmed but was not extinguished, "Not directly. I cannot help but feel that I may have done too much. Try as I might, I cannot help but see vision of death and destruction brought on by my hubris. Pessimism is a hard habit to break. I want to believe that my new young self will have the skills I lacked and that she might prevent tragedies that need not come to pass."

"Then you will stay with me then," Draal asked softly, "I could use the company."

She stood up slowly, feeling the aches of the years deep in her bones, "No, my friend. I can't stay here, I am a tired old ghost. Not even that, an echo of something that never was. I need a break, a nice long holiday. It's been... interesting."

She took a step back, reached out her closed hand and smiled at him, slowly she released her grip. Before the stabiliser hit the ground, she had vanished.

THE END


End file.
